dcpeachy wrote:I'm guessing that this week's radio ads were mistakenly "mixed up" for Albertson's in Albuquerque. However, today on local radio they were playing several variations on the "We do beef the best" campaign for Market Street. The closest Market Street to Albuquerque is in Amarillo, TX, which is just over 4 hours east of Albuquerque.

Last week they had the "We do beef the best" ads on as well, but they were for Albertsons.

Albertsons (and after buying Safeway) uses one of the cheapest spot delivery services for radio. It was probably a mistake on their end or it could have been from the agency, which is Ivie and Assoc.

Messed up advertising seems to be a thing. I heard radio ads (like a 10 second ad) for 'O Organics' a few months back and at the very end, I'd hear Available at Albertsons, or Available at Safeway. Problem is...this was on a Philly radio station and this is Acme territory.

mbz321 wrote:Messed up advertising seems to be a thing. I heard radio ads (like a 10 second ad) for 'O Organics' a few months back and at the very end, I'd hear Available at Albertsons, or Available at Safeway. Problem is...this was on a Philly radio station and this is Acme territory.

Ironically, I have had the opposite situation occur in Texas. In DFW, all of the radio stations owned by CBS Radio play a ton of Albertsons/Tom Thumb ads when listening through their online platform. However, on numerous occasions, I have heard what initially sounds like an Albertsons ad, only to hear the Acme name at the end. There never seems to be any rhyme or reason to it either.

they are trying again with the 3's a crowd gimmick in the norcal region. they need to find some consistency in the norcal division with their overall pricing. the socal albertsons stores are really starting to become safewayized with the similar price tags and prices minus the club cards in the socal region. i hope the streamlining works out for them.

No 3's a Crowd Signs in Reno/Lake Tahoe yet... I think I did see a couple at a store in Sacramento a few weeks ago and thought they were "leftovers."

Maybe this time they have enough labor to meet the promise?

NorCal Division just lowered a lot of prices but the new prices are still way too high. Mostly it is like they took items that used to go on sale and the old sale prices are the new regular prices. 18pk eggs new low price 2/5.00, yawn. Safeway did this same thing multiple times in the past before Albertsons. These prices may be a little lower than Save Mart and about on par with Raley's, but that isn't saying much. I keep wishing Save Mart would do something because I think they could capture a ton of business if they got back to basics of decent quality and decent prices, but they are so screwed up, it makes it real easy for Safeway to just keep walking all over them. Raley's I believe is in a position to capture more business, but needs to promote what they are doing on price, as well as promote some of their perimeter items/programs better.

It is not 3's A Crowd on the signs. They say something similar, but it is not a guarantee. The recorded announcement says 3 or 4 in line will make them open a new register. That cannot be done because the Northern California stores are still understaffed. There are a few more employees than before, but still not enough.

It does not help that the self checkout machines are shut down at night.

Safeway is still high priced, but I still find some good deals with Just For U.

I find fewer and fewer good deals with Just for You. Lately I have been getting odd generic offers like "50 cents off any produce item, 50 cents off any bakery item" instead of item specific promotions within the departments. The difference before was the item specific promotions were "no limit" usually, would be on items I bought, so I tended to buy a few of them at a time, while now these are a flat limit 1 per week. So they are clearly cutting down on the promotions they want to deliver to me, probably due to seeing how little I was buying... did not want to cut me off completely, but did not want to throw many discounts my way either.

Smiths and WinCo smoke them on price so bad in Reno, it isn't even funny. My purchases from Safeway continue to be at an all time low. It is sad really, a few times lately I have actually walked Safeway Stores and walked out emptyhanded due to the high pricing or poorly stocked perimeters, or out of stocks on sale items I intended to buy from $5 Friday. Raley's has been seeing more and more purchases from me lately; some good plumcots have been there for the past month+ at 2.59/lb which is a fair price, pork loin chops are almost always on sale $3/lb or less (bone in or boneless depending on the week), 93% lean ground beef 3.99/lb every few weeks, etc.

Just for curiosity, has anyone noticed better everyday prices in regions where the local Albertsons/Safeway banner(s) have a strong competitor such as a Kroger banner? In DFW, prices have been reduced at Tom Thumb from their previously ridiculous levels to a level roughly in line with Kroger's everyday pricing, primarily over the last few weeks. This still isn't truly competitive for this market considering the multitude of other completion such as Walmart and Aldi, but at least they are making an attempt. I was curious if this was isolated to DFW/Texas, or if this was happening chainwide?

They seem more competitive on some items (not nearly all items) with Fred Meyer in Seattle area now than they used to be. Basic items like private label flour, private label sugar, private label yogurt, are all priced competitive now. A lot of name brand dry goods continue to be 20-30%+ higher in price when you compare everyday prices.

Also in Seattle, the Albertsons Stores are basically such in name and not much more. Perimeters are switched almost completely to Safeway items and programs. Center store still feels like it has a larger mix than Safeway, but that is about it. Also in-store announcements over the speaker saying "exclusively at Safeway" and then being asked when I paid if I "had a Safeway card" pretty much sealed it all up in my opinion. Supervalu did run Albertsons into the ground particularly badly in Washington so this is probably the best move to make.